YOUTUBE Remove Two Billion Views As Fake From Major Labels

OK stick with me here, because this is kinda complicated and I am not sure I understand it myself but Youtube has removed two billion views from Universal and Sony videos.

1. Youtube counts its viewership through clicks, people actually watching the videos.

2. They are paid by advertisers and pay record companies based upon the numbers.

3. Hackers go in and put bogus views to make more money. These are called "black hat" viewers.

4. Youtube just wiped em out.

The story is even more complicated than that. Now neither Sony nor Universal have much music left on YouTube, all of Michael Jackson is gone.

On another front, Youtube have been taking down videos where fake likes have been placed (in order to move the videos into better positions on the website). There are companies that actually sell likes and their clients are might mighty upset.

It is actually interesting but confusing. For one thing, I can't figure out if Universal and Sony randomly chose to take down the videos, or if they were copyright infringed videos as the labels used Vevo, According to the Daily Dot: "More than 500 prominent YouTube channels have been stripped of preexisting YouTube views in the past 30 days, something that causes concern when you consider that YouTube views counts, unlike subscriber statistics, are cumulative and cannot organically drop at any point throughout their existence."

Personally, I am not surprised at all. I did business with Google's TV ad sales, where you bid upon commercial time on DTV, and found them completely terrible. It is no wonder they couldn't make a pretty good idea work. Now they appear to be doing something bonkers with Youtube.

Here is the link to the daily Dot story: http://www.dailydot.com/news/youtube-universal-sony-fake-views-black-hat/